How To Communicate With A Psychopath?

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Psychopathy is an outdated name for personality disorder.

Psychopathies can be very different: psychasthenoid, schizoid, paranoid, hysterical, explosive, narcissistic, etc.

Psychopathy is characterized by (the Gannushkin-Kerbikov triad):

1. totality (a psychopath's personality defect manifests itself in almost any spheres of his life: in his profession, in his personal life); 2. stability over time (unlike neurosis, which is a temporary disorder, a personality defect is not treated, it can only be compensated for through optimal conditions and psychotherapy); 3. maladjustment (a person experiences difficulties in improving his life: his relationships deteriorate, he often changes jobs, may not understand what he wants, how to interact with people, which often leads to antisocial actions or alienation).

Psychopaths have a dependent personality structure and a low threshold of frustration (tolerance of negative emotions, stress), and therefore they often abuse alcohol and drugs to relieve stress. Although psychopaths-hypochondriacs, on the contrary, can often be fans of healthy lifestyles.

The continuum of impairment of psychopaths is also different: up to a mild impairment with which they function normally, to the level of a criminal, a dissocial personality, a hermit and an unsociable person, a frequent patient of a psychiatric hospital.

In life, we often deal with psychopaths who are not openly dissocial, but still somehow built into society, simply because of the peculiarities of their personality, relations with them are conflicting.

The article will focus specifically on such psychopaths, regional ones, whose defect was influenced in many ways by destructive upbringing: lack of a basic sense of security, violation of attachment, life in the "fight / flight / freeze" mode. These conditions somewhat distort the picture of the psychopath's world: the environment is seen as hostile, even if it is not, the world seems unsafe, the psychopath's body is always tense, mobilized to repel the threat, the lack of love in relationships is compensated by alcohol, food, work and other addictions, outbursts of aggression, infidelity …

On interaction with society, the psychopath projects his model of relations with his parents, mainly with his mother. The psychopath all his life either proves something to the symbolic mother, or is at enmity with her. The proving psychopath is a perfectionist narcissist who often has antisocial attitudes and negativism toward authority figures.

If you look into the very core of a psychopath's personality, you can see a traumatized child who needs love, acceptance, constant confirmation of his merits. The actions of the environment, which the psychopath regards as dislike, rejection, suppression, injustice, are trigger, provoking anger, outbursts of aggression, activation of primitive defense mechanisms.

If a psychopath lives in an environment in which there is some stability and security, acceptance, he is often compensated, and destructive manifestations on his part become less, especially with age.

However, if the environment is stressful, then the psychopath will not be able to compensate, and will constantly function at a primitive level (show aggression, devalue, manipulate, injure himself, drink, cause other troubles for himself and others).

Since the psychopath is a child at heart, he needs a healthy adult nearby in order to "grow" the psychopath to a mature level by his example. But finding such a partner is very difficult. This should be a very loving and interested in him, stable partner.

More often the psychopath finds the same psychopath, and even more goes into destruction.

In family therapy, I often see a couple in which both have personality disorders, it is very difficult for them to understand and accept each other, becausethey talk from the perspective of two self-centered children, mirror each other, provoke tantrums and fights.

At the same time, I see how, with a more mature partner, the psychopath begins to change.

Often, when a wife complains that her husband is a psychopath (and vice versa), she herself unconsciously provokes rage and violence from his side.

An example from life. The wife asks her husband to fix the switch. When he starts to figure it out, she asks: "Are you sure you can handle it?"

Such a doubt is enough to cause a psychopath's outburst of anger, so that he dropped what he started and sent it in three letters. However, the wife does not stop at this: "Well, it has begun! You are always so unbalanced, you cannot say anything at all …".

The wife can pronounce this phrase with a slight mockery, devaluing. This behavior can easily trigger further physical abuse.

Or another example. The husband is out of sorts and does not want to continue the conversation, but the wife insists on finding out the relationship, gradually winding herself and her husband more and more. As a result, the husband raises his hand to her or verbally humiliates her with subsequent revenge (gets drunk, spends time in the company of other women). This is because neither the psychopath's partner, much less he himself, owns alternative strategies of behavior in such a situation.

Of course, there is no excuse for physical abuse. But sometimes the emotional can be much more painful. And in most cases, violence can be avoided by changing the way you perceive and react.

More often the psychopath resorts to psychological violence, manipulation. They are destructive if the other takes it all at their own expense. But the very fact that the other is in fusion with a psychopath and cannot separate his emotions from his, abstract from his messages, already speaks of the need to work out their own behavioral mechanisms.

Communication with a psychopath can be constructive only when the interlocutor is above the situation, in the role of an observer, and not an involved participant, when he looks at the psychopath as a product of childhood, environment. Only in this state of separation can the interlocutor maintain a sobriety of reason and emotional calm, rationally building his own line of behavior.

Nobody has to live with a psychopath. However, the reality is that many live with them, and not always a psychopath is some kind of terrible monster. Often this is also a financially successful person with his own merits.

Psychotherapy is something that can make life easier for both the psychopath himself and help his loved ones in building productive interaction with him.